Andrejs Poikāns is an artist and researcher based between The Hague, Netherlands and Riga, Latvia. In his practice he uses new media techniques to experiment with speculative software art, computer graphics, sound installations, electroacoustic music, and sound performance. As a researcher he is fascinated by the topics of listening modes, sound perception, philosophy of language, media archeology as well as experimental computer music. He is a graduate of New Media Arts BA programme in Liepaja University (2017-2020) and holds an MA in Sonology from The Royal Conservatory The Hague (2020-2023).

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june 2024: generative composition based on asemic writing for Cecilie Fang, The Hague, Netherlands date TBA: radio show for UFMCA date TBA: NTS radio with emer

"Under The Nose: explorations of a silent voice"

MA thesis, Institute of Sonology Den Haag, 2023.

This thesis describes the voice as an entity existing at the crossroads of perception and imagination. As such it brings with it many questions regarding listening and subjectivity. These ideas are developed further by providing examples from cinema, sound art and computer music.

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[screenshot from "Der Himmel über Berlin", 1987]

"egg I3301"

together with Trang Ha

2023-10-07

Food and sound art performance that explores a systematic approach to boiling a large amount of eggs, Quartair, The Hague, Netherlands.

"obs1" (Object study 1)

Fixed media 8ch / site specific – 10 min

In the work “object study 1” I attended to the formant structure that partly characterises the timbre of human voice. It is also a quality that has been explored more greatly specifically due to the aid of computational techniques. From the point of view of psychoacoustic, the voice signal contains specific peaks in the spectrum that characterise such timbral differences as those which allow one to distinguish ‘vowels’ in speech, song and utterance.

I conceived of the work known as “object study 1” while doing a course in sound art guided by Justin Bennet in 2022. The class was presented with the possibility of making a sound installation in the 200-meter-long shooting gallery in the basement of het Hem, Amsterdam. When I thought about the specificity of the space and my own intentions of its use, I imagined a long pipe, or perhaps a long vocal tract. Since it is closed at both ends, I thought about the physical sensation of humming to oneself. In this situation, the mouth is closed, and the voice resonates in the body surrounding the vocal mechanism. Humming can also be understood as a musical act aimed at one’s own embodied experience compared to overt singing with an audience.

"obs2" (Object study 2)

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Stereo/ generative ~ 10 min

“Object study 2” is a software adaptation of the sound installation “object study 1”. I used the possibilities of using routine based compositional techniques in SuperCollider to adapt the previously described work to different spaces of presentation. I had this in mind already while making the first rendition of the piece, but the main reason of not choosing this method in the first place was due to the site specificity of the het Hem shooting gallery, which presented specific mixing conditions. The result of revisiting and adapting this work has led me to explorations in aleatoric possibilities of executable code composition, formalisation, and other algorithmic approaches.

"I used to take walks here, evading the pavement lines"

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Augmented Reality sculpture and a complimentary electronic composition, thoughts on direct contact and distance, Liepaja, Latvia.

"missing"

a custum made speaker, raspberry-pi, 3 color prints

A study of long durational digital sound transformations of a single pop song, each alteration is propogated in space once per hour, 427 gallery, Riga, Latvia

"Let us therefore see, O human soul, whether present time can be long at"

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print, software

The church-bells ring, an echoing reminder of the presence of God. It’s the alarm, announcement of the daily yoga class at 9:30; 12:00 – drive to the mall; business meeting at 15:00 – discussion of the marketing plan for the new line of shampoos.

Throughout the automation of our daily whereabouts, as it is the case for electronic calendars and events on facebook, boredom along with spontaneity (the sort of ‘spontaneity’ that peaks outside the commercial realm) have been excluded from late-capitalist societies. This also goes for the possibility of novelty – in a world where a constant flow of notifications is a norm it is impossible to do intellectual work or daydream. Mark Fisher in his 2012 essay “Time wars” even goes as far as to say that “Only prisoners have time to read, and if you want to engage in a twenty-year long research project funded by the state, you will have to kill someone**”. The work invites viewers to schedule boredom, spontaneity and absurdities in their daily lives via mobile virtual calendars.

*St. Augustine “Confessions” **M. Fisher “Time wars”

"bigBit(beta)"

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A 3D game built in Unity that deals with the topic of post-digital labor and afterlife.

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